Re: Nosy

: : : Has anyone got any clever terms or phrases for someone who doesn't mind their own business (the "backseat driver" syndrome)? I have a Jewish friend who uses the term "butt-in-skee" ("Buttinsky"), but I think it's pretty ethnic sounding. Thanks. -Patty

: : So you want we should all stop with the ethnic phrases, yet?

: : "Buttinsky" is actually fairly common. I've seen a Briticism in print, "Nosey Parker" (sp.?). But that one has the similar drawback of being associated with a particular ethnicity: Anglo-Saxon whiteness. Any phrase you can name will have come from some language or other and will therefore belong to some ethnic group. Well, ethnic, shmethnic, as long as we're communicating!

: I heard 'sticky beak' in an Australian soap opera. From the context it appeared to be an Oz version of nosey parker.
: Gary

My husband calls me "Gladys Kravitz" when I peer out the window at the neighbors. (I can't help it, they're fascinating.) Gladys was the nosy next-door-neighbor on "Bewitched," an old TV series.